


Better Mann Imperative, Essential Destruction

by LittleMissPixieStix



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Eating Disorders, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 07:53:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5735665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleMissPixieStix/pseuds/LittleMissPixieStix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on a fan headcanon about Scout having been a lil' chubby when he was a kid, inspired by one of his Mannarobics lines.</p>
<p>A one-shot for now, unless I decide to expand or continue it later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Mann Imperative, Essential Destruction

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was originally posted on Tumblr here:   
> http://littlemissfemscout.tumblr.com/post/136464358072/better-mann-imperative-essential-destruction  
> Likes and reblogs are appreciated, but by no means required. =)

It was a routine check-up.  It was just something the team had to take part in every couple of months.  If Mann Co. was going to pay them top money, then the mercs had to be in top shape.  It was just that simple.

Scout was at the end of his check-up.  Medic had checked his heart, his reflexes, run some other tests.  The way the man was smiling, Scout’s results had come out perfect.

Like they would come out any other way.  He _was_ the Scout, after all, the fittest member of the team.

“How’d I do, doc?” Scout asked, a smirk up on his face as he sat on the gurney, “Did I ace the check-up?”

“Oh, yes.  Your results were quite good, Scout, as good as ever,” Medic replied with a smile, turning in his seat as he scribbled something on a piece of paper, “The muscles in your arms were a centimeter or two smaller.  But that’s it.  Other than that, your results were as good as ever.  You’re free to go.”

Scout frowned as he left the medibay, an expression unseen by the Medic.  Thoughts raced through his mind about what the doctor had just said.

The muscles were smaller?  He had been using his gun more, that had to be why.  Using the gun more had meant less swinging, less exertion for his arms.  That’s why the muscles he had were shrinking.

He had to stop that.  He had worked hard to get those muscles, and now he was losing them because of his stupid, lazy ass.  Relying on his gun to get work done, out here in a war like this, what kind of idiot was he?  He had to use his bat more, he was going to make up for this lose.  

Maybe he’d only use his bat, maybe he’d take an unloaded gun into the fight so he  _had_ to use his bat.  Maybe he’d start lifting weights more.  He had started to slack on that, hadn’t he?  He used to lift three times a day, now he was done to a stupid two.  He needed to fix this.  He could go start working out his arms more now in fact.

That would do it.  If he did all that, then he could fix his mistakes, he could fix this.  

He had fought a long-hard battle to look as good as he did.  The last thing he was going to do was let his idiocy lose all of it for him.  That just wouldn’t do.

Dinner came soon after the final mercs check-up, which Scout was thankful for.  It was a challenge to lift the fork up to his lips, his arms still burning from his hard workout, but it was a good burn.  

That burn meant he was righting his wrongs, it meant that he was going to look better soon.  A centimeter made quite the difference, after all.  It made a difference to him, anyway, a big one.

He must not have been paying attention to how much he was eating.  A comment from Soldier brought him out of his thoughts, the same way a splash of cold water would.

“Keep eating like that and soon you’ll be a real man, private.”

Scout looked up at Soldier, a hard look in his eyes as a smear of red grew on his face.

“I’m already a real man.  You wish you were as good a man as me,” The Bostonian snapped, standing up as he picked up his plate, “I look people in the eyes like a man and don’t hide under my sissy helmet, ya’ pudgy patriot.”

“Are you done eatin’, Scout?” Engineer asked in trying to change the subject, watching Scout clean up his spot, “You’re welcome to have more, son.”

“Nah, I’m good,” Scout said, giving the man a surprisingly warm, and fast, smile, “I’m full.”

Those were two words that had made his mother proud.  Those words he lied about over and over, just to make her proud.  Here, those words were the key to keeping himself looking decent.

Before anyone could say anything else to him, Scout took his plate to the kitchen, rinsing it off and putting it away before his stomach could change his mind and he started having seconds.  

He didn’t need to eat anything else.  He didn’t deserve to eat anything else.

With the way he looked now, he didn’t deserve anything else.  

The fact that he had eaten enough then to make someone comment on it meant that he didn’t deserve anything else.  

He couldn’t keep eating like that, not if he wanted to stay in shape, it had to stop now.  It just wouldn’t do.

He left the kitchen, making sure to avoid mirrors, or other reflective surfaces, to be found on the base.  He hated what he saw in mirrors on most days.  Some days he was such a stud, it made him wonder how the ladies weren’t all over him.

Other days, he just wanted to shatter it, just so he wouldn’t have to keep looking at that hideous person that he saw.  No angle made him happy, either showing too much fat or not enough muscle.  But how could it show muscle if he was losing it? 

God, he hated himself so much sometimes, he just couldn’t stand it.

Heading out of the base, he went for a run, despite just having ate.  He ate too much to run, but he had eaten too much not too.  

If he threw up because of it, then he threw up, and that was that.

Unfortunately, he didn’t throw up.  He got an awful side-stitch, it was stupid of him to have, but he was in too much pain to continue his running after that.  He had to wander back to the base walking while clutching his side, trying to knead the pain away so that he could go out and do it all again.

Now that he wasn’t running, he had time to think.

Which meal was he going to skip?  He had to skip one, there was no arguing that.  If he kept eating three meals a day, he could go back to being the chubby kid in the family.  He didn’t want that.  It just wouldn’t do.

So he had to decide whether to skip breakfast or lunch.  Dinner was out, everyone was around for dinner, so he had to go to that one.  It was too suspicious not to.  It had to be breakfast or lunch.

Breakfast was supposed to be the most important meal of the day.  But it was one of the busiest times for the mercs, because everyone was planning and getting ready for the big fight of the day.  In all that chaos, it would be the perfect meal to skip.

Lunch was close to dinner, though.  It would help to hold him over if he skipped breakfast.  Not everyone attended lunch though, it was a wander in and grab what you want meal, so it was as unsupervised as you could get.  The perfect meal to skip.

It was decided.  Right now, he would try to skip both.  They were both easy opportunities to take, too easy to pick only one.  If it didn’t work, he’d think more about it later and pick only one.  Right now, he’d see how he fared on only one meal a day.  He had done it before, when he had been playing baseball, he could do it again.  

If he kept eating like his team mates, then he might end up looking like them too.  The last thing he needed was to turn into a lard ass.

God, he missed baseball.  At first, it had just been a sport his mom made him participate in to help him lose weight.  Soon, it had become more than exercise, it was something that he loved.  It was a sport that he looked forward to playing, the fact that it had helped the chubby baby of the family lose weight could have been it after thought.  

It wasn’t, but it could have been.

It was a shame that he had to eat dinner.  It was a shame that attending the meal had turned into a sort of “requirement”, where if you didn’t show up, you were checked on.  He hated that.  It made him furious that he had to go eat then.  He preferred choosing when and what he would let himself eat, and neither of those were choices at dinner.  

He would bypass the meal entirely if he could, stay in his room and eat what he thought was permissible later, but he couldn’t.  It just wouldn’t do.

His hand idly wandered down to his gut, grasping the thin amount of fat that he felt piled up on top of the muscle.  He hated that layer.  He despised it.  He ran and he ran, fighting, swinging, and swearing, but it never went away.  He could be happy if only that was going.  If only that were different, he could be happy. 

 He could try to be happy now.  He could try to ignore that horrible pile of fat, try to live his life and think about other things, but he would know that it was there, taunting him, ruining his life.  

He could try to be happy now, but he wouldn’t.  He couldn’t deny the truth and let small things slide, but they would just end up being bigger, uglier things in the end.  They could ruin everything for him.  It just wouldn’t do.

Rest was what he needed now.  Rest and food.  He had been out for two hours running and walking back, so he was hungry now.

Clenching his stomach muscles tight, he unwrapped a piece of gum, heading for his bedroom instead of the kitchen.  If he was still hungry later, he’d head to the kitchen and snag a spoonful of some peanut butter or something.

‘Course, licking the spoon clean had been the part of the reason he was like this.  His mom had always let him lick the bowl clean, it had always made him so happy.  Little did he know that it would just end up making him miserable in the end.

Maybe he wouldn’t get anything later, he didn’t need it.  

He didn’t deserve.

Getting back into the habits that had made him gain all that weight wasn’t a good idea anyway.  He didn’t want to get back into the habit of licking spoons and bowls clean.  That would just make gain all that weight back. It just wouldn’t do.

It was her fault that he had gained all that weight.  His mom’s fault.  She had been giving him that candy, letting his lick bowls clean, cooking her goddamn food so well…

No.  No no no.

It wasn’t her fault.  That part wasn’t her fault.

It was his fault.

He had been the one to eat the candy, the one to lick the bowls, the one who had asked for a second and third serving. 

And he could still remember the look on her face the day he had asked for a fourth and told him no.  

He could remember the ways she had been hinting at him to lose weight.  He had missed that they were hints when he was younger, but thinking about it he could see what she had been saying.  

He could remember the way she teased him, in a friendly way, the way a mom could, but it had still hurt.  It had hurt so bad.  

You were supposed to be able to trust a mother.  They weren’t supposed to teasing you, tweak your nose and call you her “chubby lil’ baby” or her “lil’ butterball”.  They weren’t supposed to sit you down and tell you that you were fat.  

They were moms.  They weren’t supposed to do stuff like that.

But he was better now, he looked so much better.  The last time he had seen her, she had commented on how good he looked, how fit, how strong.

He had held his tongue and refused to comment on how it looked like she had gained some weight herself.  He wasn’t that low, he wouldn’t say it to her face.  It just wouldn’t do.

No saying “who’s fat now, ma” to her face.  To others maybe, to himself, but not to her face.

He would be better than her.  

He would do his best to make her proud, he would make that centimeter of muscle up and he would lose that layer of fat, and he would do his best to be better her.  To be better than everyone who had ever teased him about his baby weight while he was growing up.

He would be the attractive guy, the guy that looked so good that everyone was jealous of him.  There’d be no burying him in the ugly cemetery after he had lost that weight in his gut and added muscles everywhere else.  He was going to be so goddamn attractive that you wouldn’t believe it.  

After he fixed everything that was wrong about him, he’d be so fucking perfect and he’d never hate what he saw in the mirror ever again.

And his mother would never again take a look at him, his body and his weight and say that:  

_“It just wouldn’t do.”_


End file.
